In coming to know ourselves,
We find freedom.
In finding freedom,
We find joy.
In finding joy,
We come alive.
I remember when I was just starting my spiritual journey and everything felt so obscure and jumbled and hard to decipher and discern.
I didn't know what right listening was or what I was listening for.
I didn't know where I was,
Who I was.
So I think it's important that we acknowledge a few of the basic elements of our being.
So to really ground ourselves in an understanding so that we can use that understanding to then propel us into deeper and deeper relationship with ourselves.
In today's practice,
We're going to be doing a sort of body scan where we are just acknowledging some very sacred and basic elements of our being.
For this practice,
You can be lying down or sitting up,
Whatever you find most comfortable.
Just coming into simplicity,
Into this moment,
Sitting under this wide open mouth of the sky.
Sitting on this great,
Mysterious and beautiful earth and planet.
Going through space,
Warmed by a sun,
Fed by the earth,
Loved,
Deeply loved.
We can anchor in our body by paying attention to our breath.
Really seeing how when we ground in our bodies and connect with our breath,
How our awareness begins to expand.
Not looking so narrowly at our lives and ourselves,
We are opening.
Breathing in,
I am aware of my in-breath.
Breathing out,
I am aware of my out-breath.
In-breath and out-breath.
Just like the waves of the great sea.
Moving our attention away from our breathing now,
I invite you to take one of your hands and gently place it on top of your forehead.
Acknowledging the great and powerful engine of your mind.
The mind that weaves story,
Meaning that works tirelessly to solve our perceived problems,
That helps us organize our lives,
That creates both ease and trouble for us.
We want to thank our minds now.
Thank it for the work it tirelessly does with the intention of bringing us peace and harmony and well-being,
And though sometimes flawed,
It works in effort for our greatest good.
My thanking mind for all you do.
And now we bless our mind so that it may function in its highest,
Most harmonious state.
I bless you for your highest good and function.
May you rest in thoughts of love,
Safety,
And well-being.
May you focus on harmony,
Trust.
May you no longer perceive problems and open with a curiosity.
May you move like water.
May our currents be smooth.
My thanking mind.
Now we're going to move down to our throats,
Our mouths,
Our sound.
If you have the ability to place your hand on your throat,
I invite you to do so now and if not,
Just rest your awareness there on our throat,
On the mouth.
And we acknowledge the incredible power of our voice.
If we are able to use our voice,
Our speech,
Our sound,
We acknowledge that everything that comes out from this place sets off a ripple,
A frequency carries with it a message,
A feeling,
An energy.
We see that with our sound,
With our words,
We have great power.
We can create harm or we can create good with this part of our beings.
I thank you for my voice.
May the words and sounds that come from this place be that of love,
Compassion.
May I use this gift to touch others in a way that creates love in their bodies and their beings and their mental states.
May I be conscientious of what I am sending out into the world from this place.
We bless this place.
May you work in the highest function.
I bless you.
Thank you.
And we bring our awareness now down to the heart center and you can place your hand there if you'd like.
Breathing deeply into my most favorite part of the body.
And we feel the quality that this heart of ours encourages.
And we bless and thank this heart now.
May we bless and thank the heart that brings us our feelings.
Love would not be felt were it not for this great engine at our core.
Because of the sensitivity of this place we often unfortunately shield and protect it.
We create a hard shell around it so let's bless this place and ask for it to open.
Teaching ourselves that love is safe,
That love is kind.
That life is safe and life is kind.
May you,
My heart,
Stay open.
May you bring me to the doorway of joy even through what is hard.
May you lead me to the deepest understandings.
May you be the lens that I see out from.
I thank you,
Dear heart.
I bless you.
Your highest good,
Highest function.
Noticing how soft you become just by focusing here.
When we are sitting in the seat of the heart the quality of our beings shifts.
We emanate a different type of energy when we live from the heart.
Remembering this is here,
This is a choice.
To soften.
To arrive in each moment as unshielded as possible.
And in so doing you will be fed.
And moving down now toward our belly,
Our stomach,
Our gut.
Letting go of any tension that we may be feeling in our abdomen,
In our diaphragm,
In our breathing.
This is the home of our breath,
Our intuition.
It's also our foundation and our root.
We often tense and guard this area also because of its sensitivity.
So right now in this great aware state we ask that the walls of our belly soften.
That everything opens.
We breathe more deeply.
And we let the diaphragm unfold from its tight quarters of shallow breath.
And we bless this place.
Dear foundation,
Dear core,
Dear intuition,
Dear womb,
Dear belly.
I bless you for your highest good and function.
May I listen to you when you are tense and afraid.
May I follow the calls to soften.
May I remember to open to you.
And may we move in harmony with one another.
May you feel safe.
May you feel empowered to speak knowing that I will listen.
And may you guide me in knowing when it is time to rest and care for the foundation of me through breath,
Through movement,
Through quiet contemplation.
And now because we are not separate from the natural world and from the world around us both seen and unseen,
I want us to draw our attention out into the great wide expanse around us.
Just really acknowledging the felt presence in the room around you.
You are witnessing the world,
But something is also witnessing you.
Building you in some way in this great vast and mysterious world and universe.
And I'd encourage you to try and rest in this presence.
To draw energy and well-being from the quiet of the room around you.
To let yourself be fed by the peace at the borders of our being.
The more we rest in this greater presence and this mystery,
We give up a little of our control and we relieve the body of some gripping and stress.
And each time we practice this muscle of surrendering into the mystery,
We learn something called faith.
Faith in the peace that's holding us.
Faith and trust in the mystery.
Knowing that it's not empty but full of a vibrant sort of life-giving essence that is really here for us,
Supporting us.
Feel us just engage with that presence,
That greater presence around us and give to it our fear.
Admit anything that is holding you back.
Speak to it as if you were someone you love and someone who loves you.
As if an old friend is listening to your burdens,
Helping you carry it so that you are not alone in any of this.
I release from my breath and bones the invisible threads of my suffering,
The incessant voices of my fear.
I let go of my control and need for perfection and I relax in the arms of the infinite.
I give to you my burdens and allow you to hold me in my freedom.
Take from me the chains that are keeping me small.
Absorb me in your grace,
Swallow me whole.
Thank you.
I'm taking a moment now just to express gratitude for this wild and wondrous experience of being alive.
I'm taking a moment now just to express gratitude for this wild and wondrous experience of being alive.
I'm taking a moment now just to express gratitude for this wild and wondrous experience of being alive.
I'm breathing in,
I'm aware of my in-breath.
I'm breathing out,
I'm aware of my out-breath.
And you can open your eyes whenever you're ready.
When we begin to see our bodies and our beings as these kind of separate elements,
We can see when the mind starts to take over,
We can see when the heart begins to close,
Or when the belly gets tight.
We can notice when we feel choked or unable to speak,
Or we can notice when our language and our sound is that of pain and suffering.
And when we begin to notice these different elements,
We can actually start to work with them and open them and soften them and quiet them and redirect them.
Mastery is a skill,
And our bodies are a vehicle that we must learn to master.
So I'd encourage you to use this practice whenever you're feeling tension in any parts of the body or the mind or the being,
And really learn to strengthen the muscles of faith and trust and engagement,
Really learning to co-create and engage with all the seen and unseen elements of our world.
I thank you for taking the time to practice with me today.
So I happy to see that this has been a good way toboard with me.
